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I know popularity of the Queen is a whole lot higher than the popularity of the Prime Minister, so I'd rather have Lizzy as our head of state than Harps any day of the week. I wouldn't mind David Johnston being head of state, however.
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http://monarchist.ca/en/cost-of-the-crown Cost is frankly a red herring. |
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A lean version of a GG that does not travel abroad would greatly reduce personnel, rcmp and dnd costs. Moreover, the link you provided lists 16 million in Program expenditures without giving any indication as to what that is and how it is broken down. Pretty half assed when that represents 85% of the GG budget - I have a hard time believing there is no waste in that. Without having any effect on services for Canadians, the GG could easily absorb a 20% reduction in operating budget. Moreover, things like the Citadelle should be transfered into a different budget group like Heritage Canada as it clouds the true cost of the GG. |
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"Governor General’s Office was granted $19,149,541 as an operating budget. These funds provide “for the payment of the Governor General’s salary, for the costs of the Governor General’s annual program including visits within Canada and abroad, for citizen access and visitors’ services program at Rideau Hall and the operation of the office and residences.” The federal government also allocates monies to the Office of the Governor General for the Honours Program. This provides for “the administration of programs in the National Honours system,” which includes the Order of Canada, the Order of Military Merit, the Meritorious Service Decorations, Bravery Decorations, the Order of Merit of the Police Forces, and certain other recognitions to citizens, such as the Caring Canadians Award." If you do a little calculating, you'll find that something like $11.4M of the $16.5M in program expenditures is actually personnel costs. That's probably somewhere in the range of 100-150 personnel. Quote:
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"The expenses incurred in maintaining and running La Citadelle are covered by the budget of the Department of Public Works and Government Services. For 2006-2007 the overall cost was $1,096,430.21" It's the Monarchist League itself that has pulled in the cost of the Citadelle as a cost of monarchy since it is an official residence. They could choose to not include it I suppose but then they might be accused of not fully accounting for the cost of monarchy. At any rate, whether we are a monarchy or a republic, we would be bearing the cost of the Citadelle unless we sold it off. |
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Although given some choices of Governor General and Lieutenant Governor in the past 25 years, I'm not sure if that is entirely important. Part of the cost of those positions is in having staff to research what to do in certain scenarios if they come up, but you'd still need someone to make and execute a decision. Every government has an executive branch and chief executive. Quote:
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Minnesota is not led by "Head Civil Servant Jane Smith". It is lead by "The Governor of Minnesota". Quote:
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Also, the Crown is considered to apply to the provinces separate of the Federal Government. Technically, the Queen is also Queen of Ontario, Queen of Alberta, etc. The same viceroy can't represent 11 monarchs. Also, the viceroy must be up-to-date on the government activity. But then, the Queen stays up to date on the activities of 16 realms while Canada only has 11 equivalents. |
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Well Quebec is différent.
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All I am saying is that we could abolish the Lieutenant-Governor and hire a top public servant at half the salary and a third of the operation budget to do the same job and no one would see the difference (except that we would look less like a British colony, and in Québec that would mean a lot). |
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Keep it, if we ditch the monarchy and end up being a U.S. clone, I'm moving to Cuba >:
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• Guarantee continuous and stable government • Act as a nonpartisan safeguard against the abuse of power • Be the core of authority within the province • Appoint the premier and cabinet • Announce proclamations and orders-in-council (our equivalent of an executive order) • Appoint judges • Summon the legislature • Read the speech from the throne (our equivalent of a state of the union address) • Prorogue or dissolve parliament • Signs bills into law • Host foreign heads of state • Meet with the people of the province (Obama was in Rock Island, IL the other day, so travelling just to give speeches isn't exclusive to monarchies) • Present medals and bestow honours (pretty much every country does this) I have trouble seeing a bureaucrat, even a top bureaucrat, undertake these responsibilities. All of these points would require constitutional changes of not the monarchy, but the nature of the executive branch. At this point we aren't even debating whether Canada should be a constitutional monarchy or not. We're now debating whether or not the government should have a proper executive branch, and how that branch should work if it will exist. You're talking about reform of a branch of government here, not simply the nature of our head of state. I would be open to changing the head of state to a republican system, but I am not open to abolishing the position entirely or replacing it with a bureaucrat. |
I'll be honest, the throngs of people ecstatic over Will and Kate and proclaiming how much they love them, on Canada Day, makes me ill.
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So I guess all of you pro monarchists are OK with this:
The head of state of Canada must also be the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, therefore: Jews, Catholics, Muslims, Hindus, non Church of England Protestants, Agnostics, Atheists etc. etc. need not apply. And females can forget about if they have an older male sibling. CANADIANS NEED NOT APPLY! Canadians themselves can never aspire to be the head of state of their own nation. Our head of state can only ever be an Anglican Protestant Brit, preferably male. Is this something that we should supporting in 21st century Canada? I'd really like to see a monarchist defend the hereditary selection process. |
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Your best argument is that it would be very difficult to ditch the monarchy. Constititional changes for a symbol... If we want to make changes in the Constitution, I am sure there are a lot of other things that are more important and that would be more worthy of the time and energy spent. But if we chose to make some changes, I still say get rid of the monarchy. (And would getting rid of the Lieutenant-Governors by the provinces who want it really needs a constitutional change? I mean, it is not the General-Governor). |
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